


Adaptation

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Category: Star Ocean: The Second Story | Second Evolution
Genre: Archival Fic, Don't copy to another site, Dragons, Interspecies Relationship(s), Other, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25540474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: They've been looking for a cure.
Relationships: Ashton Anchors/Dias Flac/Gyoro | Creepy/Ururun | Weepy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19
Collections: Coyo's Old Archive Fic





	Adaptation

**Author's Note:**

> Back to working on moving stuff over from the spambot...this one's from 2012 when I was doing a holiday snailmail card exchange. Darkicedragon requested: Ashton/Dias - wings

The innkeeper nods from behind the counter as Dias passes but doesn't stop him or ask any questions. Dias can tell he'd like to. _About your friend_ is the way most of those questions start, though they rarely get any further than that. Most of them seem to think his flat stare means he's protesting the ' _friend_.'

Shifting the bag of their supplies to a more comfortable spot on his shoulder, Dias starts up the stairs, ignoring the curious looks trailing after him. He knows Ashton thinks those looks are due entirely to the company he keeps. He doesn't realize that Dias has always been stared at, for as long as he can remember. Appraising, envious, occasionally admiring; it's all the same. Ashton still makes himself scarce whenever they're in town, leaves Dias to make the rounds of the traders alone, uncomfortable now that he isn't just one more anomaly in a traveling mob of them.

He tries the door before reaching for his key and finds it open. Ashton must still be in, then, not that he'd really expected anything else. It's been a long week, though, so Dias is quiet when he lets himself in, just in case Ashton has passed out on one of the room's two beds the way he'd been threatening to before Dias left.

As it happens, Ashton is still awake. Has his back to the door, in fact, and Dias would chide him for that, except that the dragons are just ducking through the neck-holes in the robe Ashton is pulling off over their heads. The sight of Ashton's back stops Dias in his tracks; as long as they've been traveling together, first with the others and then on their own, he's rarely seen Ashton less than fully-clothed.

The skin Ashton bares had been tanned once, so deeply the gold is still fading, which tells him Ashton's modesty is a new thing. He suspects he can guess the exact day it began.

It's only because he hasn't _seen_ it that his eyes are drawn to the place where Ashton and the dragons are fused: not his shoulder blades the way it sometimes looks, but to either side of his spine. Scales ripple across skin like a stain spreading in water, red and blue, distracting enough that it takes a moment to realize the sharply-defined muscles in Ashton's back are all wrong. They've...shifted somehow, maybe to support the new weight he has to carry, maybe _wrenched_ out of place by the same. It ought to be uncomfortable, but Ashton doesn't look like he even notices. He just drops his robe onto the foot of the bed, lifts his arms and stretches until his spine cracks, until the-- _wings_ , a mottled mix of red and blue, melt painlessly through his skin, unfurling cautiously in the limited space of their rented room.

They look strong. That's what Dias notices first, his mind skipping over the pure strangeness of it, the 'where did they come from' and 'how is he not _bleeding?'_ Ashton has _wings_ , and the bony frame of them looks hard as horn, the leathery membranes as tough as boiled hide. He wouldn't be surprised to learn that Ashton could fly with them, but instead they've been kept hidden all this time.

He might have made a noise just then, irritated or unhappy or something more foolish. At least his expression hasn't slipped; when Ashton whirls to face him, jerking his wings close, Ashton's horror is only a desperate kind of guilt, his babbled apology shamed but not offended.

"Dias! You're--you're back early--I mean, not that...uh, this isn't what it--okay, it is what it looks like, but--I--"

"Ashton," he says calmly, edging the rest of the way into the room and closing the door behind him before anyone else can wander by. "It's all right."

"But," Ashton says, and Dias wonders why. The dragons are giving him nervous looks too, and that's strange enough to make him frown.

"Did you find a cure?" he has to ask, ignoring the slow ache that settles behind his ribs. It's not just that Ashton didn't tell him. It's that the only reason they're traveling together in the first place is because he stupidly agreed to help Ashton look for a way to separate himself from the dragons. If they can... _rise out_ of him...if Ashton has already found it--

Ashton shakes his head, holding Dias' eyes as if afraid to look away. "No," he says slowly, hands clenching at his sides. "We're...it's not a cure." Dias waits, but he's not expecting Ashton to suddenly blurt, "There isn't one. Not...not anymore. Not for us."

He's not sure he understands, but that...transformation hadn't looked like a _transformation_ , exactly. "You're...adapting," he hazards a guess and feels a sympathetic heaviness press on his own shoulders at Ashton's miserable nod. They've waited too long, then, and the magic has settled, and there's no longer any escape for Ashton from the stares and the questions and what he's become. No longer any reason for them to be traveling, either. Not _together_.

He's about to say as much when Ashton's eyes fall to the floor.

The dragons are still staring at him, Ururun pleading, Gyoro betrayed, though the red dragon's glare goes surprised and then urgent when he notices Dias staring back. Everyone looks at the dragons, but almost no one really _sees_ them.

Dias feels as guilty of that as all the rest when he finally realizes what they're trying to tell him.

"All right," he says, crossing the room as casually as he can, though he's never been good at that. He'll count it a victory if Ashton doesn't get that hunted look most people do when he's only trying to be careful. "Are you okay with that?"

He's pretty sure it's a stupid question. He feels stupid for asking it, and not only because the answer should be obvious. It's just that he's been told that he's the least sympathetic bastard on the face of the planet one too many times...but not by Ashton. Yet.

Ashton's head comes up with a jerk, and his incredulous stare is about what Dias expects until Ashton begins to laugh. It's not a very happy sound, but Dias can understand that. What doesn't make sense is Ashton's quiet, "It's fine. I mean...we're used to the idea. The wings were kind of a big hint."

Dias shakes his head, puzzled. "And when did...?"

"Central," Ashton says, his tiny smile another apology.

Dias stares. Central City? But that had been months ago, before they'd ever returned to their world.

He'll admit he's occasionally blind, but never _that_ blind. He doesn't think Ashton spent all this time looking for a cure he already knew wouldn't help. He's pretty sure Ashton just didn't want to be alone. And he could let that go--it's what friends do, or so he's been reliably informed--except that Ashton could have chosen to be not-alone with any of them. All this time Dias has assumed Ashton picked _him_ because where Ashton is going, he'll need Dias' sword.

Only apparently that's not the case.

"Huh," he says, shrugging the bag he's been carrying all this time off his shoulder at last. "So I guess we're going straight on to Lacour, then." No need to make any extra stopovers now, though the bounties are always good wherever Ashton leads them. It certainly isn't as if they've been wasting their time.

"I--we?" Ashton sputters, something scared and hopeful in his eyes. "But--you--you don't have to--"

"I never _had_ to," Dias interrupts with a rude snort, which startles Ashton silent. "So? Lacour? Although I guess we've got some time to kill now."

Ashton swallows hard but nods, finally beginning to relax. Relief makes his wings slump out of their cramped clench against his back--it must be more work to pull them back in than it is to let them out in the first place--and Dias eyes them curiously as they unfurl.

"Can you fly with those?"

Ashton blinks at him, surprised again, and says, "I have no idea."

"We should find out," Dias decides, shrugging at Ashton's blank look. "It could be useful to know."

Ashton opens his mouth, closes it again, seems to be drawing on some hidden depth of courage when he asks, "'We?'"

Dias just gives him a look, but unlike innkeepers and shop clerks and random idiots on the street, Ashton knows what Dias' flat stares mean and hesitantly starts to grin.

It worries him a little that the dragons keep trading glances like they've come to some private decision and are egging each other on. He worries right up until Ashton notices him noticing and whips his head around to cast a panicked glare at Gyoro while blushing to the roots of his hair. Dias is so busy being amused at this, he forgets to keep an eye on Ururun, who stretches his neck over Ashton's shoulder, cool tongue flicking out to plant a grateful lick on Dias' cheek.

Ashton's nervous breath is loud in the silence that follows, but Dias spears the blue dragon with a look and finds Ururun--patient, calm Ururun--matching him stare for challenging stare. The dragons are their own people, and Dias knows that, but...they've always had Ashton's best interests at heart, are a little too smart to play off the dumb animal act with any convincingness. He doesn't think Ururun intends him to misinterpret that _kiss_ as anything but what it is.

When he catches Ashton's eyes again and watches them warm when he doesn't walk away, he resolves to pay closer attention to all three of them from now on.


End file.
